Tacoma police investigating after man says he killed mother

TACOMA, Wash. — An East Tacoma neighborhood was in shock after a woman's son called 911 early Sunday to say he shot his mother.

Tacoma police said at about 4:30 Sunday morning, a 28-year-old man called 911. He said he had killed his mother. When officers arrived, they found a 63-year-old woman dead.

It appeared she had been shot, and her son was taken into custody.

The woman who died was Rhonda Randle. Her father said she was a longtime Boeing employee who was working as a sheet metal supervisor. He said Julian Randle is her only son; that she was helping put him through school.

The victim's father said he doesn't know what could have happened that his grandson would have killed his mother.

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As of Sunday night, Julian Randle is in the Pierce County Jail facing a second-degree murder charge.

The news has slowly spread through the neighborhood where she lived.

"When I saw the van, I said maybe something's going on. Maybe some water line, something had, you know, had broken or something," neighbor Marie Spencer said. "I had no idea."

Spencer said she was on her way to church when she noticed some activity outside the home of her neighbor, but it wasn't until her granddaughter told her later that police were there that she began to put it together.

Hours later, detectives were still investigating the scene, and by then, Spencer had learned the terrible news.

"Sad," she said. "Very sad. Very sad."

Cox Media Group